The Fluoride Action Network (FAN), along with a coalition of environmental and public health groups has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to their denial of our petition under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) seeking a ban on water fluoridation.

We believe this lawsuit is an unprecedented opportunity to end the practice once and for all in the U.S., and potentially throughout the world, based on the well-documented neurotoxicity of fluoride. You may read the official complaint here. According to FAN’s attorney and adviser, Michael Connett:

“This case will present the first time a court will consider the neurotoxicity of fluoride and the question of whether fluoridation presents an unreasonable risk under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

And, in contrast to most other legal challenges of Agency actions, TSCA gives us the right to get the federal court to consider our evidence ‘de novo’ — meaning federal courts are to conduct their own independent review of the evidence without deference to the EPA’s judgment.”

Industry, legal and environmental observers following the EPA’s implementation of the new TSCA law have pointed out that a lawsuit1challenging the EPA’s denial of our petition would provide a test case for the agency’s interpretation that petitioners must provide a comprehensive analysis of all uses of a chemical in order to seek a restriction on a particular use.

Legal experts have suggested the EPA’s interpretation essentially makes the requirements for gaining Agency action using section 21 petitions impossible to meet, making the outcome significant for all U.S. residents and public health or environmental watchdog groups.

Lawsuit Background: EPA Served With Citizen’s Petition

On November 22, 2016, a coalition including FAN, Food & Water Watch, Organic Consumers Association, American Academy of Environmental Medicine, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, Moms Against Fluoridation and several individual mothers, filed a petition calling on the EPA to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating chemicals to the drinking water under provisions in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

We presented the FDA with a large body of human and animal evidence demonstrating that fluoride is a neurotoxin at levels now ingested by many U.S. children and vulnerable populations. We also presented the agency with evidence showing that fluoride has little benefit when swallowed and, accordingly, any risks from exposing people to fluoride chemicals in water are unnecessary.

We believe an impartial judge reviewing this evidence will agree that fluoridation poses an unreasonable risk. On February 27, 2017, the EPA published their response.2 In their decision, the EPA claimed:

“The petition has not set forth a scientifically defensible basis to conclude that any persons have suffered neurotoxic harm as a result of exposure to fluoride in the U.S. through the purposeful addition of fluoridation chemicals to drinking water or otherwise from fluoride exposure in the U.S.”

As many independent scientists now recognize, fluoride is a neurotoxin.3 The question, therefore, is not if fluoride damages the brain, but at what dose. While EPA quibbles with the methodology of some of these studies, to dismiss and ignore these studies in their entirety for methodological imperfections is exceptionally cavalier, particularly given the consistency of the findings and the razor-thin margin between the doses causing harm in these studies and the doses that millions of Americans now receive.

EPA’s own Guidelines for Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment highlights the importance of having a robust margin between the doses of a chemical that cause neurotoxic effects and the doses that humans receive. FAN presented the EPA with over 180 studies showing that fluoride causes neurotoxic harm (e.g., reduced IQ), pointing out that many of these studies found harm at levels within the range, or precariously close to, the levels millions of American children now receive.

Typically, this would be a cause for major concern. But, unfortunately, the EPA has consistently shied away from applying the normal rules of risk assessment to fluoride — and it has unfortunately continued that tradition with its dismissal of our petition.

Fortunately, the TSCA statute provides citizens with the ability to challenge an EPA denial in federal court. For too long, EPA has let politics trump science on the fluoride issue (see examples). FAN welcomes having these issues considered by a federal court, where scientific evidence has a better chance of being weighed objectively.

To accompany our lawsuit, FAN is offering a new DVD and a comprehensive campaign flash drive package. The DVD features the video, “Fluoride and the Brain,” in which Michael Connett explains that fluoride’s ability to lower IQ in children is just the tip of an iceberg of over 300 animal and human studies that indicate that fluoride is neurotoxic.

We have also made a comprehensive collection of campaign and educational videos available on a single flash drive for a limited time. It also includes our EPA petition and supporting documentation. This is a must-have for every fluoride-free campaigner’s toolkit.4 Another must-have is the book “The Case Against Fluoride,” by environmental chemist and toxicologist Paul Connett, Ph.D., which contains a comprehensive science-based argument for the end to artificial water fluoridation.

Winning this lawsuit will require a full team effort, and we want you to feel a part of that team and a part of this moment in history. Please consider playing a larger role in this potentially fluoridation-ending lawsuit by making a tax-deductible contribution.

New Study Quantifies Fluoride’s Potential to Lower IQ in Children

Since submitting our citizen’s petition to the EPA, we have learned even more about the threat to the next generation. Some children in the U.S. may be consuming enough fluoridated water to reach doses of fluoride that have the potential to lower their IQ, according to a research team headed by William Hirzy, Ph.D., a former senior scientist at the EPA who specialized in risk assessment and published an important risk analysis in the journal Fluoride last year.5

Current federal guidelines encourage the addition of fluoride chemicals into water supplies to reach 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L). Hirzy followed EPA risk assessment guidelines to report: “The effect of fluoride on IQ is quite large, with a predicted mean 5 IQ point loss when going from a dose of 0.5 mg/F/day to 2.0 mg F/day.”

Many children in the U.S. commonly consume these levels of fluoride within this range from all sources (i.e., water, food, dental products, medicines and air pollution). Hirzy explains the significance of this study:

“The significance of this peer reviewed risk analysis is that it indicates there may be no actual safe level of exposure to fluoride. Groups of children with lower exposures to fluoride were compared with groups having higher exposures. Those with higher exposures performed more poorly on IQ tests than those with lower exposures.

One well-conducted Chinese study indicated that children exposed to 1.4 mg/day had their IQ lowered by 5 IQ points. Current average mean daily intakes among children in the United States are estimated by EPA to range from about 0.80 mg/day to 1.65 mg/day. Fluoride may be similar to lead and mercury in having no threshold below which exposures may be considered safe.”

Dr. Bill Osmunson, FAN’s interim director, noted that this risk analysis adds further weight to the petition submitted to the EPA by FAN and other groups in November to ban the addition of fluoride chemicals to drinking water under provisions in the Toxic Substances Control Act.

FAN progress isn’t limited to the legal world. Our relentless effort to get the U.S. government to take fluoride’s neurotoxicity seriously is also beginning to pay off in other ways. For many years, American regulatory and research agencies have failed to finance studies seeking to reproduce the many studies undertaken abroad that have found harm to the brain (over 300).

When toxicologist and pharmacologist Phyllis Mullenix, et al., published their groundbreaking animal study6 on fluoride and animal behavior in 1995, she was fired from her position as chair of the toxicology department at the Forsythe Dental Center. That sent a chilling message to U.S. researchers — research on fluoride toxicity is a “no-go” area. But that is changing. Now, with the U.S. government funding several important toxicology studies, this should encourage other Western researchers to get involved:

•There is a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded fluoride/brain study.7 Our Canadian friends are extremely excited by this research funding to Christine Till and Ashley Malin, the co-authors of the important study that found a correlation between fluoridation and increased ADHD rates in the U.S.8 This could definitely be one of the most important developments in water fluoridation to date.

•The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is in the process of completing a rodent study using low levels of fluoride exposure. However, we have concerns over the consultation process NTP had prior to when this study was undertaken (see “Vigilance Still Needed” at end of this article).

•Dr. Philippe Grandjean, Harvard School of Public Health, is leading an ongoing study of fluoride and intelligence among a group of schoolchildren in China. Grandjean published the preliminary results of this study in the January-February 2015 issue of Neurotoxicology & Teratology.9

•A National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS)-funded human epidemiological study titled “Prenatal and Childhood Exposure to Fluoride and Neurodevelopment” is investigating the relationship between fluoride and IQ among a cohort of children in Mexico. A summary of the study10 is available online.

•An NIEHS-funded animal study, “Effects of Fluoride on Behavior in Genetically Diverse Mouse Models,” is investigating fluoride’s effects on behavior and whether these effects differ based on the genetic strain of the mouse. The principal investigator of the study is Dr. Pamela Den Besten. A summary of her study11 is available online.

•The NIH is funding a study investigating the impact of fluoride on the timing of puberty among children in Mexico. This study is pertinent to the assessment of fluoride’s impact on the pineal gland’s regulation of melatonin. The preliminary results of the study were presented at the 2014 Independent School Entrance Examination ISEE conference and can be accessed online.12

•Though not funded by the U.S. government, Jaqueline Calderón Hernandez, Ph.D., Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is currently working with Diana Rocha-Amador, Ph.D., on three studies on fluoride neurotoxicity:

1.An examination of the cognitive effects from fluoride in drinking water

3.Investigating the impact of in utero exposure to fluoride (via drinking water) on cognitive development delay in children

Rocha-Amador is also examining the impact of fluoride on thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women, and published a fluoride/IQ study in 2007.13

Vigilance Still Needed

We still have to be vigilant to make sure that those determined to protect the fluoridation program don’t skew the results. For example, it is worrying that the NTP specified that an animal study should be conducted at 0.7 ppm — which is a ridiculous provision for an animal study on fluoride. For example, it is well-known that rats need a much higher dose of fluoride in their water to reach the same plasma levels in humans.

Moreover, it is standard practice in toxicology to use much higher doses in animals to tease out effects. To conduct experiments on animals at expected human doses would require a huge number of animals, which would be cost prohibitive. These studies also raise a significant question for those who continue to promote fluoridation in local communities and legislatures around the world.

“What primary scientific studies (not bogus reviews conducted by pro-fluoridation agencies) can you cite that give you the confidence to ignore or dismiss the evidence that fluoride damages the brain as documented in over 300 animal and human studies (including 50 IQ studies)?”

As shown by its support for these new neurotoxicity studies, our own government has acknowledged the risk fluoride poses to our children. If proponents cannot provide an adequate scientific answer to this question, then fluoridation should be halted immediately, and should under no circumstances be initiated.

National Fluoridation Stats Show Tipping Point Has Been Reached

Progress is also being made on the political front. U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) fluoridation statistics for the U.S. have been released for 2014,14 and they show exactly why the fluoridation lobby has been pouring more money and resources into promoting the practice and fighting our efforts: WE ARE WINNING!

For the first time in nearly 40 years, the percentage of the U.S. population served by community water systems receiving fluoridated water decreased, from 74.6 percent to 74.4 percent. The percentage of the U.S. population receiving optimally fluoridated water (natural and artificial) also decreased, from 67.1 percent to 66.3 percent. Also decreasing:

The number of water systems providing fluoridated water (natural or artificial)

The number of water systems adding fluoride

The number of water systems providing naturally “optimal fluoride” levels

Momentum Continues to Build Thanks to Citizens Like You

More than 460 communities throughout the world have ended existing fluoridation programs or rejected new efforts to fluoridate either by council vote or citizen referendum since 1990. Since January 2016 alone, we’ve confirmed that at least 33 communities with nearly a million collective residents voted to end fluoridation, bringing the number of victories since 2010 to at least 225 communities,15 representing approximately 6.5 million people.

Most of these victories were the result of citizens organizing local campaigns and voicing their opposition to public officials, with many working in coordination with FAN or using our materials to educate their neighbors and local decision makers about the serious health risks associated with the practice. Some of the latest victories in the U.S. and abroad include:16

This is an urgent message concerning the public water fluoridation program in the Triangle area. We NEED YOU to sign this petition (whether you live in Orange County or not). This will be presented to the local Orange Water and Sewer Authority board this coming THURSDAY MARCH 23, 2017 to immediately stop all actions to resume public water fluoridation in the wake of the recent public health crisis this past February.

In February of 2017 OWASA “accidentally” set the fluoride feed pumps to 8X the normal pump speed and left them on for 3.5 hours. When it was discovered, the water treatment plant was shut down, and subsequently a water main broke which left the community without safe running water for 2 days.

Later that month, OWASA heard from citizens concerning the water disaster, and a full 90% of the respondents including two former board members were in staunch opposition to the public water fluoridation program. OWASA did not address any concern specifically as they wanted the water disaster and the fluoridation issue to be considered in a mutually exclusive vacuum.

The next OWASA meeting with public comment, even more citizens arrived to speak against public water fluoridation and OWASA’s negligence, but OWASA still would not address the issue head on and reserved the right to “examine or not examine it.” In the same meeting, OWASA admitted Fluoride binds to lead and enters the water system and voted unanimously against my petition for a public referendum on the public fluoridation issue.

Then, OWASA held an impromptu meeting at their community room where they would decide “if we would examine, or not examine the public water fluoridation issue again.” The UNC dental school was obviously commissioned and sent a bunch of their lackey’s including Rebecca King who testified in Durham & Chapel Hill on behalf of the Oral Health Section of the Department of Health and Human Services back in 2012 to promote Fluoridation, but was fired by DHHS in 2013. Citizens suspect OWASA contacted the dental school because they were losing the argument at every meeting both in numbers and in logic.

OWASA then voted AGAIN to resume “normal” fluoridation protocols despite majority public sentiment in opposition.

OWASA is holding a meeting on the 23rd of March where they will announced their planned date to “resume fluoridation” ostensibly after they have “fixed” the issues which lead to over-fluoridation in the first place.

Recently the local water board who manages Orange County’s public water utility set off a series of infrastructure failures which lead to the depletion of the water supply and a brief “No Drink Order.”

The genesis of the issue was from an accidental fluoride “overfeed” which required the OWASA organization to shut down the water treatment plant and import supplies from a neighboring city. This most likely resulted in a water main burst shortly thereafter that exacerbated the problem and caused a full system shutdown. Businesses were expecting a busy weekend and lost thousands of dollars.

As a leitmotif of this blog, this unfortunate disaster raises opportunity to ask the question once more; so why is the city medicating the water supply with a highly corrosive and highly neuro-toxic industrial byproduct of the fertilizer and aluminum industry to begin with? In view of the situation in Chapel Hill, nobody can argue that it is a fiscally responsible or effective methodology to solve a social medical problem like cavities!

The OWASA board has been medicating the water supply with hydrofluorosilicic acid for many decades now, and the chemicals used have proven capacities to corrode metals and concrete over time.[1][2] This not only threatens our own biological well-being but is principally involved on multiple levels in making the water disaster. This is what OWASA and the City Council would like the public NOT to focus on.

There is dated video evidence on this very website of local activists raising this and many other ethical / legal problems with community water fluoridation to the OWASA board, emphatically demanding a cessation of this perilous policy. Now that there has been a legitimate disaster, a lot of public attention, and increased distrust of the water ‘authorities’, OWASA may now be in an area of possible negligence and commercial liability.

To exacerbate and confuse the issue as it unfolded, the series of news releases published by OWASA to communicate the ongoing guidance, was riddled with contradictions and dubious assurances of water safety.

For demonstration sake, just look at the initial guidance after the fluoride overfeed incident was made public:

OWASA temporarily receiving drinking water from City of Durham; water continues to be safe to drink

However, customers may notice some discoloration in water. The discoloration, which results from stirring up sediment in water pipes, **does not make the water unsafe **–but it should notbe used for laundry, cooking, drinking, etc. —

When asked for test results to verify the claim that the supply was not contaminated with Fluoride or worse, the county health director only shared a bacteria and chlorine reading (bacteria-results-2-6-17)

The OWASA board has temporarily stopped their community water fluoridation program pending a 3rd party review of the incident. They should stop while they are ahead and have the water running still.

Rest assured we will be reorienting the discussion to the real cause of the problem and trying to ensure the people respond accordingly and finally end the community water fluoridation scourge in this area. Given the social importance of the triangle to the central fluoridation scheme, a reversal in OWASA-land would have a huge psychological impact to the movement against government medical intervention nationally.

The Board meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Council Chamber at the Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Chapel Hill.

Members of the public will have up to four minutes per person to comment at the meeting. They may also send comments in advance to info@owasa.org or to Andrea Orbich, Clerk to the Board, 400 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro, NC 27510.

[1] North Carolina Study Concluding that chlorine (CL) or chloramines (CA) with fluosilicic acid (FSA) or sodium fluoride (NaF). CL is known to corrode brass, releasing lead from plumbing devices.

[6]Lead-in and recording of Kevin Bucholtz from Department of Health and Human Services admitting in 2012 that hydrofluorosilicic acid leaches lead from the pipe, taken from Documentary we made chronicling our protest attempts starting at 12 minutes 51 Seconds: https://youtu.be/ZabGVxv96qI?t=12m51s

Dear President Elect Donald J Trump, the Trump family and the new Trump administration,

Congratulations on your momentous landslide victory in the 2016 presidential election. Against all odds your team has out-maneuvered the most powerful and corrupt political and media establishment which has had heretofore an iron grip on the minds of the public. You experienced first hand the collusion, dirty tricks and uniformity of action against a rising populist sentiment in America.

You intimately witnessed how the DC propaganda machine is able to manipulate large swaths of the electorate to believe a false narrative, and I’m sure you have been frustrated by the gullibility of many voters to do so.

Now that you have won the election battle I note that you have quickly begun the transition process and all the ensuing machinations of “assuming office.” Before you know it, your cabinet positions will be filled and you will have to set about fulfilling your campaign promises, which to use your own words is to “make America Great again.”

Surely I know that every brand of politico, lobbyist, industrialist and well meaning citizen are pitching their ideas to you and your team – lord knows there is a lengthy list of things to do in order to begin to reverse course, and everyone seems to have their own ideas about how best to achieve that. From monetary to foreign policy, it is all a great big beautiful mess and you have taken on the unenviable role of trying to fix it.

Easier said than done, I know!

But the key question is, how does one prioritize which issue to tackle first?

As a builder you know well that in any new construction the most important step is to construct a solid foundation first and foremost. The rest of the process is only made possible by having a level and properly supported foundation. In cases of renovation, sometimes you must repair the foundation in order to revive a property that has fallen into disrepair.

Similarly, the outward manifestation of society’s behavioral ethics, intellectual achievement and moral direction as a whole is built upon the foundation of our “group intelligence quotient” which is simply the average intelligence quotient of a civilization’s individual constituents.

One should expect that the more enlightened a society is, the more ethical and constructive they will be.

In business and in life I am sure you have discovered yourself that low IQ is directly related to project delays, corruption, back stabbing, financial mishandling, mistakes, confusion, unnecessary aggression, dishonor and every other negative attribute of human being. This is self evident because any enlightened individual or society with a high intelligence would realize the diminishing returns of such behavior patterns and immediately reorient them for their own self interest.

In light of this revelation, it becomes apparent that your success depends less on your own personal persuasiveness, cunning or intelligence but much more heavily on the reciprocal intelligence level of the rest of the individuals who constitute the civilization you are attempting to uplift.

Consequently in order to effectively and comprehensively deal with such myriad political quandaries one must first address the foundational problems of society (Group IQ), before attempting to fix any of the dependent structures for them to have proper and sustainable support.

Otherwise, the incalcitrant minds of a dumbed down electorate will not be able to properly perceive the truth and will revert back to debased, unengaged, selfish and programmed behavior patterns. Under such psychological conditions the public will still be easy for the corporate media to manipulate and it will be difficult at best to get anything of great magnitude done.

Luckily there is a feasible, remarkably fast and effective way for a new administration such as your own to boost America’s group intelligence from the top-down, which will greatly open the hearts and minds of everyone involved and subsequently accelerate the collective intellectual and emotional evolution needed for you to properly address the major policy issues which have come to characterize American apathy, degeneracy and serfdom in the last few decades.

Coincidentally such a singular fix easily fits into your existing contract with the American voter, under Section 2.7:

SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure.

Source: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contract/

While there are many issues with our water supply and other environmental infrastructure perhaps the most influential on the group IQ of our nation is the well known state health policy of “Public water Fluoridation.”

Consequently, America has seen an average intelligence quotient stunted over the same period of time it should have been growing due to improved living standards, which is undoubtedly influenced by this persistent and largely unobstructed policy. (See: Are we becoming more STUPID?)

The amount of value this one policy has destroyed is impossible to evaluate, because it has unquestionably prevented significant economic production including inventions, innovations and interpersonal acumen that we can only imagine but not measure in real terms.

Perhaps more concerning than the deleterious effect of water fluoridation on our average intelligence is the well known problems it causes with our thyroid health. The purpose of your thyroid gland is to make, store, and release thyroid hormones into your blood. These hormones, which are also referred to as T3 (liothyronine) and T4 (levothyroxine), affect almost every cell in your body, and help control your body’s functions (including emotions, reproduction, and intelligence!).

We all know how unbalanced hormones can make people act crazy, and this is precisely what is happening when our society ingests tap water on a regular basis that is laced with the halogen Fluoride. The thyroid absorbs the fluoride, instead of the iodine it needs and is consequently prohibited from serving it’s proper function in the biology of our people. (See: Clinical Studies on Fluoride’s effect on the Thyroid)

Despite the unfortunate fact that most people are still living under the self interested mantra of the state dental lobby that “Water fluoridation is a significant public health achievement,” many of them are nevertheless acutely aware that our water infrastructure is not altogether safe – with the Flint lead crisis and other recent controversies the public temperament towards the public water authorities has never been more open to change.

With this one issue a Trump administration has the opportunity to do immense foundational repair to the underlying intellectual and bio-physiological deficits which make enlightened thought patterns a scarcity in the halls of government and elsewhere. In my estimation there isn’t a single issue that could more effectively change the overall psychological ether in this country than reversing this long standing attack on the literal operating system of the American people.

Reversing public water fluoridation would immediately result in a softening of our hearts and a sharpening of our minds which would accelerate our opening to enlightened transcendental ideas that can give birth to a new epoch of political, socio-economic and legal reforms.

Here are my specific recommendations on how a Trump administration could maximize their use of the office to influence this situation and change the overall calculus with respect to the state sacrament of public water fluoridation.

Use of the Bully Pulpit: Hold a press conference at the White House and outline the legal, financial, moral, and scientific reasons why the people should demand their municipalities change the policy.

The FDA’s definition of a Drug/Medication is; “articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease” [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)]. The only stated purpose of public water fluoridation is to PREVENT tooth decay, which is considered a disease of the tooth. Under current FDA law, city council members are therefore criminally liable for continuing public water fluoridation, but no court will ever hear the case because they too are inculcated by the effective fluoridation propaganda of the dental lobbies and misguided state health representatives – the FDA commissioner should put all participating municipalities on notice to come into compliance with the existing FDA laws or face commercial liability for any damages that can be argued in a court. When activist law firms see the opening to make money via class action lawsuits that hold weight, the city councils will come into compliance very quickly.

4. Re-examine the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in the perpetuation of the public water fluoridation scheme.In my two part interview with long time EPA toxicologist and fluoride activist William Hirzy, who blew the whistle and testified before congress on this issue in the early 2000s, he explains how the EPA is responsible for covering up the health dangers in order to maintain the status quo. In my personal experience I have found some cities will rely on the EPA’s allowable environmental fluoride concentration level to suggest that the amount the city adds to the water is therefore safe, but when confronted with scientific evidence to the contrary the EPA says that they don’t regulate municipal water supplies. We need to stop the onion of bureaucracy and inter-agency collusion which leads to a perpetuation of our most pressing problems.

Mr. Trump, if you are for real, then please give consideration to taking these 4 straightforward recommendations to make a monolithic change that will have the largest return on investment of any single tenant in your 100 Day contract with voters.

During the 5th Annual Citizen’s Conference on Fluoride I was fortunate enough to get an exclusive 45 minute discussion with world renowned risk assessor & decades long anti-fluoride activist Dr. William (Bill) Hirzy Ph.D. Hirzy is well known in the anti-fluoride circles thanks to his keystone contributions as a whistleblower from within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters.

Hirzy’s most famous contributions to the anti-fluoride movement came when he was acting as senior vice president of the EPA union of scientists and professionals.

According to Hirzy this union was initially organized to protect EPA staff members from unethical pressure by EPA management. In other words – let them do their jobs as risk assessors, etc. properly! They later became aware of the risks of public water fluoridation & began working within the EPA to try & do something about it.

Dr. William Hirzy Former Risk Assessor at the Environmental Protection Agency

Sad to say that such a union would even be necessary in a government agency who makes such bogus & impossible claims that they protect human health & the environment, but unethical pressure from high ranking bureaucrats is no big surprise to us is it? The union, with Hirzy as spokesman, earlier this century appealed to a Senate subcommittee on the reality of fluoride’s developmental neurotoxicity & its many other latent adverse health effects, which are negatively affecting the entire daydreaming American public as a result of the government’s 60 year old public water fluoridation policy. Dr. Hirzy’s role as risk assessor, is ostensibly to warn the government of possible financial or criminal risk by evaluating certain policies – yet his advices heretofore have fallen on deaf ears! See Hirzy’s powerful statement below, from the Year 2000:

As you hear Dr. Hirzy explain his role as risk assessor, we can easily extrapolate that this union behaved almost like an immune system antibody, deployed within an otherwise healthy system to identify & defend against foreign invaders (unethical pressure aka corruption). That would be the traditional roles of each group anyway, if we believe that the EPA was formed to legitimately protect the environment. But what we see over time is an increasingly politicized federal agency, easily manipulated by rank, paygrades & external organizations, constructed hierarchically with a lack of traditional checks and balances . This has obviously motivated the white hats, who actually wish to perform a legitimate civic duty, to organize to better resist the embedded junta bureaucrats.

In America this Union concept can be considered the “check” on power. What we discover through Bill’s testimony however is that the system itself was corrupt & consequently the tables turned! It was the union who was treated like a virus infecting the EPA with truth & Dr. Hirzy walks us through many of the dirty tricks, administrative shifts & railroading attempts to prevent the truth from getting out. Although a valiant effort, the organization was proven not strong enough as we listen to Dr. Hirzy tacitly admit that it only took veto action by an ever changing & growing administrative landscape within the EPA to thwart the Union, which brings us to where we are today – the same place we were 50 years ago after fluoride was successfully implemented in the first place!

This interview however strays far from the minutia of fluoride politics & instead takes on a more personal character as Bill walks us through his own life experiences waking up to the fluoride deception while embedded within big corporate & governmental giants like Monsanto and the EPA. Unbeknownst to me, Dr. Hirzy had previously been arrested for protesting the construction of nuclear power plants in the midwest. This led not only to his ousting from Monsanto & his eventual hiring at the EPA, but the now famous theoretical physicist Michio Kaku had interestingly come to his defense at this time in the 80’s.

Perhaps even more noteworthy is the clear bias Bill describes within the bureaucracy of the EPA, contrasting it with his experiences at Monsanto which would on occasion express the same pattern of promoting & rewarding those who maintain the status quo while shunning those who challenge it. Bill seems to have had a lifetime of struggles due to his predisposition to tell the truth.

It is especially interesting that Bill’s specialty is in risk assessment which is to determine the amount of financial risk a corporate or governmental entity is exposing themselves to by selling or promoting a particular product/policy. This has obvious implications for Monsanto who’s chemical & genetic productions have the potential for vast profits, accompanied by serious financial risk should a product have an unintended detrimental health effect. Big institutions pay Big money for Bill’s intelligence because the cost of his salary pales in comparison to the potential lawsuits they might otherwise be exposed to.

But the nature of Bill’s work from the perspective of the EPA is even more damning of the EPA as an institution, than compared to a profit driven company like Monsanto, given their charter to actually PROTECT human helath & the environment, accompanied by the fiat regulatory power it is able to wield.

One should definitely question the true motives of said agency when someone like Bill, who is trying to save the EPA’s ass as much as he is trying to alert the public, gets completely ignored.

Hence the EPA have, for more than 10 years now, become criminally negligent by refusing to change the maximum allowable contamination level of water supplies with respect to fluoride, which consequently allows the various agencies under the EPA (Health & Human Services, Water Companies, City Councils, Health Boards, etc) to continue adding toxic waste to the public drinking water without criminal or federal legal repercussions.

Actually this was the essence of the 5th annual citizen’s conference on fluoride which culminated in an official petition to the EPA to answer an amalgamation of groundbreaking fluoride science which was presented to them by Dr. Hirzy & an army of other scientists, medical professionals & concerned citizens.

To understand the gravity of Bill Hirzy’s testimony on the dangers of fluoridation and the dark political manifestations which maintain the policy, one first has to fully grasp the true melange of federal, state & local bureaucracies who stand in the way of common sense, civil rights & the science. Given my own personal experience trying to enlighten local politicians on the

The multi-headed hydra that is big government

dangers we face, and thus end fluoridation, I will attempt to break it down as best as I understand it so that you may comprehend what a monumental task it is just to overcome the bureaucracy & generational indoctrination.

By the end, you may agree that the only way to kill this hydra is to make sure we get all the heads.

First – the buck stops with your local city council. Like it or not ultimately the politicians who hold positions there have seized power & are the ones administering fluoride to the population by way of majority vote. Thus – they have the power to end it. But if you challenge them, they will defer to the water management department or some similar agency who is tasked with repeating propaganda hatched by Edward Bernays & the former Federal Security Agency; now known as the Department of Health and Human Services

The water company will claim that they are only following orders from the state department of health and human services, who in the 20th century were the unapologetic propagandists promoting the mass fluoridation policy in the first place & still claim that it is one of the top 10 public health achievements of the last 100 years. They will deny they are violating any laws because they are not over 4 parts per million, EPA’s maximum contaminate level for that substance set originally in the ironically named “Safe Drinking Water Act“

If you challenge them on the basis that this constitutes forced medication of the drinking water, they claim it is not a drug, it is a mineral/nutrient & they are only “adjusting” the levels to one that is “optimal” for preventing tooth decay. This is based on the junk science produced in the 1930’s which was funded by the aluminum industry to promote fluoridation.

Depending on your geography, the actual levels of fluoride in the groundwater might be quite low, which provides the impetus for city councils to perform a public service by “bringing up” the concentration level of fluoride to one that the public health department claims is “Optimal” for preventing tooth decay. Luckily, there is a long line of fertilizer & aluminum companies who have excess fluoride they need to dispose of. This is how they get away with adding fluoride while simultaneously not taking accountability for the fact that it is adding for medicinal / preventative purposes

When you challenge the public health board that this is illegal & a crime given all science showing such, they will say they are regulated by the EPA’s 4.0ppm Maximum Allowable Contaminant Level & since they are only fluoridating at .7-1.1ppm, no crime committed!

Rinse, Repeat.

Part II:

When asked what is driving these deliberate obfuscations of the truth by the various corporate & governmental structures, Bill responded, “I don’t go there.”

A practice that most North Carolinians do without thinking much about it – drinking fluoridated water from local systems – has become a controversial topic in parts of the Triangle.

On Thursday, the Orange County Water and Sewer Authority will hear petitions from citizens who want the county to stop fluoridating public water. And in Durham on Thursday, Board of Health directors will hear from a subcommittee that was asked to look into the issue.

Fluoride opponents point to a book, “The Case Against Fluoride,” to support their argument that fluoridating drinking water amounts to adding hazardous waste to the public water supply. They say fluoride is potentially hazardous to human health and is not as beneficial in preventing tooth decay as once thought.

Nearly 90 percent of North Carolina residents who drink from local water systems drink fluoridated water. It has been standard practice in most North Carolina counties for 50 years.

But after some Durham residents complained, the county’s Board of Health assembled a subcommittee in March “to evaluate the addition of fluoride to city drinking water and come back with a recommendation,” said Vicki Westbrook, the city’s assistant director of water management. The board is expected to hear the subcommittee’s recommendation at a meeting Thursday.

Corey Sturmer, a Durham citizen who opposes water fluoridation practices, said he and other activists have been unsuccessful in bringing the issue to the attention of Raleigh officials.

“Raleigh, unfortunately, has been provided with copious amounts of scientific data, repeated appearances by myself and other citizens and even notifications that what they are doing breaks current state and federal drug laws,” Sturmer said.

Efforts to reach Raleigh’s assistant director of public utilities were unsuccessful, but a page on the City of Raleigh website indicates its continued support of current fluoridation practices.

A January 2012 study published by the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System has linked Sodium Fluoride uptake with the hardening & calcification of major arteries, also known as Cardiovascular disease & the number one cause of death in the United States.

The study first appeared in the Nuclear Medicine Communications Journal, a “rapid communications journal publishing research and clinical work in all areas of nuclear medicine for an international readership,” but these observations have not yet been picked up by the collective. The research was performed by nuclear medicine physicians who retrospectively reviewed the imaging data and cardiovascular history of 61 patients who received whole-body sodium [F]fluoride PET/CT studies at their institution from 2009 to 2010. Fluoride uptake and calcification in major arteries, including coronary arteries, were analyzed by both visual assessment and standardized uptake value measurement.

In the introduction section it is interestingly noted that the phenomenon of hardening arteries & what risks that may pose to our health has been extensively studied, however Fluoride uptake & it’s clinical significance to coronary arteries has not yet been documented:

To predict and prevent any deadly cardiovascular events, extensive studies have been conducted to evaluate the risk of cardiovascular disease. Over the past decade, many cardiovascular studies focused on the calcification process in atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries). Calcification in atherosclerosis occurs through an active process that resembles bone formation and is controlled by complex enzymatic and cellular pathways. Coronary artery calcification parallels atherosclerosis progress and is strongly and linearly correlated with fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in coronary arteries. However, the clinical significance of fluoride uptake in coronoary arteries has not been documented.

The results of this study therefore have vast implications for our collectively becoming aware of one main contributing factor to the ongoing scourge heart disease, namely municipal water fluoridation. This is especially true in consideration that 80% of Americans are since 1957 forcibly fluoridated via their public drinking water & cardiovascular disease still remains the #1 cause of death in America (600,000/year).

Despite this study’s relative significance to the research produced by Harvard which concluded higher Fluoride uptake predictably lowers the Intelligence Quotient in humans, these specific conclusions have unfortunately not made it into mainstream news to the same degree. Although the full article admits more research should be conducted on the clinical significance of Fluoride uptake, this is the exact problem we face(lack of studies) nearly 60 years into the forced, highly systematic & ubiquitous fluoridation of our municipal water supplies! One wonders the true extent of damage done if our scientists are only just now realizing the tragic link between Fluoride uptake & a disease that kills more Americans than one hundred and seventy 9/11s combined EACH YEAR.

This blows a huge hole in the already horrendously flawed pro-fluoride argument which posits that drinking Fluoride only affects the teeth and does not have any health hazards to other organs of the body. For fluoride fighters in the area, listen to me debunk local Public Health Terrorist Rebecca King once more, who ridiculously claims ingestion of fluoride is the best thing since sliced bread as it returns to the mouth in our saliva & continuously bathes our teeth in Fluoride-rich fluid!Such a bold faced & twisted manipulation of the facts is incredible in that it intrinsically admits Fluoride is penetrating all cells of the body- even the salivation glands.

So What were the results?

Patients

There were 58 male patients and three female patients. Detailed clinical histories and the presence of cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, smoking history, obesity, and history of cardiovascular events, were obtained for all patients. The clinical characteristics of the patients are summarized in Table 1.

Imaging and Statistical Analyses

CT and PET images were coregistered by the Philips Extended Brilliance workstation (Philips Healthcare). CT, PET, and fused PET/CT images were evaluated visually and semi-quantitatively simultaneously using the same workstation. All images were analyzed by two independent nuclear medicine physicians blinded to all patients’ clinical information. Inter-reader reproducibility was excellent and was evaluated using an intraclass correlation coefficient (0.89). Vascular calcification was identified as positive on CT images if the target was visually detectable with a greater than 130 Hounsfield units. CT-attenuated PET images were evaluated for fluoride uptake in major arteries. Background activity was based on the standardized uptake value (SUV) of the blood pool, which was calculated from the mean SUVs of three circular regions of interest (ROIs) placed in the left atrium, mid lumen of the aortic arch, and abdominal aorta at the level of the celiac trunk on axial images. The sizes of ROIs were 2cm in diameter for the left atrium and 1cm for the aortic arch and the abdominal aorta.

Patients’ age and reasons for sodium fluoride PET/CT imaging are summarized in Table 1. Most patients were men with a median age of 66 years (27-91 years). The majority of patients (69%) had more than one risk factor for coronary artery disease.

Arterial sodium Fluoride uptake and calcification

Arterial wall sodium fluoride uptake and calcification were evaluated in major arteries, including carotid arteries, the thoracic ascending (including aortic arch) aorta, the thoracic descending aorta, the abdominal aorta, femoral arteries, and major branches of coronary arteries. Iliac arteries were not evaluated because of frequently observed urinary and occasional bowel uptake in the pelvis, which interferes with the accurate assessment of iliac vessels. For coronary arteries, four major branches were evaluated. An example of fluoride uptake in femoral arteries is shown in Fig. 1. Orthogonal views of fluoride uptake in the aorta and coronary arteries are shown in Figs 2 and 3.

The coronary arteries were also investigated for fluoride uptake. Four major branches of coronary arteries, including left main artery (LMA), left anterior descending (LAD), left circumflex (LCA), and right coronary arteriy (RCA) were evaluated. Fluoride uptake was more frequently observed in the LAD and LCAs. A similar pattern was also identified in coronary artery calcification. In each individual coronary branch, calcification was more frequently observed than fluoride uptake (Table 2).

Among 10 patients who had significant three-vessel coronary calcifications, 80% demonstrated fluoride uptake in at least one coronary branch (data not shown).

Cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, obesity, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, smoking history, and history of coronary artery disease were reviewed in all patients (Table 3).

The majority of the patients (69%) had more than one cardiovascular risk factor; however, neither the individual cardiovascular risk factor nor the number of risk factors was significantly correlated with coronary fluoride uptake (Table 3).

Nine patients had a history of cardiovascular events. Among them, eight demonstrated identifiable coronary fluoride uptake. There was significant correlation between coronary calcification and fluoride uptake in this group evaluated by Fisher’s exact test (Table 3). All nine patients also demonstrated coronary calcification on CT images. We also compared the SUVmax in coronary arteries between patients with and without a history of cardiovascular events. The average coronary SUV max in patients with a history of cardiovascular events was 1.70, significantly higher than 1.39 for patients without a history of cardiovascular events (P=0.029, two-tailed Student’s t-test). No correlation was observed between cardiovascular risk factors and fluoride uptake in other vascular territories (noncoronary).

Discussion Highlights

In our study, fluoride uptake and CT calcification are significantly correlated in the same arterial territories, except in the abdominal aorta. This is because of the extremely high positive rate (97%, only one patient demonstrated negative uptake) for fluoride uptake in the abdominal aorta.

Fluoride uptake either overlaps with calcification or locates adjacent to the detectable calcium deposits, suggesting that fluoride uptake and detectable calcification represent different stages of the atherosclerotic process.

We found that fluoride uptake in coronary arteries is significantly correlated with a patient’s history of cardiovascular events, and the uptake value in patients with cardiovascular events was significantly higher than that in patients without cardiovascular events. These results further support the fact that higher fluoride uptake in coronary arteries indicates increased cardiovascular risk.

The combination of sodium [18F]fluoride PET and CT is a promising imaging modality that provides both metabolic and anatomic information in evaluating vascular calcification. However, large-scale studies are needed to evaluate the clinical significance of fluoride PET/CT for imaging atherosclerosis.

Conclusion

Our study demonstrates that vascular calcification and fluoride uptake are significantly correlated in the same arterial territory, although not necessarily overlapping in the same anatomic locations. An increased fluoride uptake in coronary arteries may be associated with an increased cardiovascular risk. Combined anatomic and metabolic imaging with sodium [18F]fluoride PET/CT offers a promising, noninvasive method to evaluate atherosclerosis.